Memphis Museum Opens Free Forever With 75,000 Black Photos

For most of the 20th century, if you wanted to capture a special moment in Memphis's Black community, you went to Hooks Brothers Studio.

From 1907 to 1984, the family-run business photographed everyone from educator Booker T. Washington to everyday families celebrating weddings, graduations, and block parties. Their motto said it all: "Where There's Beauty We Take It, Where There's None We Make It."

Then disaster struck. A fire destroyed the studio in 1979, forcing the second-oldest continuously run African American business in Memphis to close its doors. The archive disappeared, seemingly lost forever.

But the story didn't end there. Private buyers discovered the collection and donated it to Memphis museums, sparking a massive preservation effort. Conservators carefully restored fragile glass plates and aging nitrate film strips, revealing what could be up to 75,000 images documenting nearly a century of Black Southern life.

This December, those rescued photographs will shine in a place worthy of their legacy. The new Memphis Art Museum opens on the Mississippi River's shores with a massive 123,500-square-foot campus and a groundbreaking promise: free admission forever for Shelby County residents.

The inaugural exhibition, "Making Beauty: Hooks Brothers Studio, 1907-1984," will showcase more than 150 photographs. Art historian Earnestine Jenkins calls it "unique in terms of being such a long-term visual documentation of one community, one city."

The images tell intimate stories of resilience and joy during the Jim Crow era. Brothers Henry A. Hooks Sr. and Robert B. Hooks, and later their sons, created a visual time capsule showing how Black Memphians built community despite oppression.

The Ripple Effect

The museum's free-forever policy means generations of Memphis families can see themselves reflected in fine art. Mayor Paul Young sees this as more than generosity: "Culture is not something Memphis has. Culture is something Memphis is."

The new riverside location will anchor a cultural district alongside the National Civil Rights Museum and historic theaters downtown. Museum leaders envision visitors spending entire days exploring Memphis's rich cultural heritage, moving between exhibitions, restaurants, and landmarks.

Joining the Hooks Brothers showcase are 19 other exhibitions, including "Rhapsodies in Black," exploring free jazz's influence on Black abstractism, and "The River Calling," celebrating Southern folklore and mythology.

A collection once hidden in darkness will now illuminate the beauty, dignity, and triumph of a community that refused to be erased.